China and the West

Ferrantello, Donna. Moby-Dick and peace [ID D30218].
Original study about the influence of Orientalism on Melville and how Transcendentalists and Orientalists were instrumental to Melville's writing of his classic novel.
1) Chapter One - Ishmael's Transcontinental Journey
Given the cultural transformations triggered by science, trade and travel, Ishmael questions the meaning of life and religious understandings. What forces shaped Melville’s life? How does he depart from American mainstream Christianity? Why does Ishmael take the journey eastward on the Pequod and within his inner consciousness? What colleagues shared Melville’s explorations? How have modern critics dealt with Melville’s relationship to the Orient?
2) Chapter Two - The Influence of the China Trade, Travel and Texts on Melville's Life and Thought
Since Melville's relatives and contemporaries were involved with the China trade and Oriental cultures, they contributed to his knowledge. Passages about the China trade and Oriental culture are shown within Moby-Dick and other works. What other thinkers and texts about the Orient itself were influential?
3) Chapter Three - Transcendence to Peace: Meditation and the Orient
Melville expresses both Christian and Oriental images in the novel. After Ishmael asserts his "meditation and water" mythos in the first chapter, what direction does his "dive into consciousness" take? How does Melville develop the unfolding stages of Ishmael’s consciousness? How does symbolism relate to consciousness and the external narration of the whale hunt? How do the writings of Thoreau and Emerson influence Melville's thought?
4) Chapter Four - The Romantic Heritage: Nature- Philosophy and Polarities
Why was Melville so involved with the notion of polarities characteristic of Romanticism? How did his Romantic precursors perceive the relationship between mind and matter? What thinkers felt affinity with the wisdom from the Orient? How did Romanticism challenge materialistic orientations?
5) Chapter Five - A Symphony of Peace: Melville and Universalism
Melville was surrounded by people engaged with intense religious involvements and radical debate. The revelation of peace and harmony affects Ishmael's understanding of the relationship between Christianity and the world religions. Ishmael's transcendent experience of peace relates to the individual, the relationship between masculine and feminine and the world cultures at large. Who were the Orientalists who influenced and/or paralleled Melville’s own speculations about religion and universal truth? What roles do Ishmael and Queequeg play in this debate? How does the symbolism of the sea express universality?
6) Chapter Six - Conclusion : Writing Moby-Dick the Logos and The Tao
Similar to other Transcendentalists and Romantics, Melville discovers enlightenment through intuition and the reconciliation of polarities. Is it possible that the notion of the "Tao" was a germinating seed and design for the artistry of Moby-Dick? The pattern for design, as both conscious and unconscious creation, originates with a way of knowing and perceiving nature. Ishmael’s Romantic and Christian, Jobian quest to know the face of the whale develops and expands into a new understanding of God or a universal consciousness.